Americans are using more fuel because they weigh so much. (Source: Healthy Me!)

"If you see me coming your way/Better give me plenty space"

Americans
these days are living
big, though not necessarily in a good way. Even as some people in
America turn to healthier lifestyles, obesity rates continue to soar
upwards. That's frustrating news not only for doctors, but for
transportation engineers as well.

We already covered how
obesity was costing the U.S. airline industry $275M
USD more a year in fuel use. But according to Consumer
Reports, it's
not the only transportation industry to buckle under the America's
growing mass.

The publication cites a 2006 study which
indicates that for every pound added to the national average
passenger weight, 39 million more gallons of fuel are used. In
total, over 1 billion gallons of fuel a year (about 0.7 percent of
the nation's total use) can be attributed to fat.

Other
studies show that the effect, while small, may be larger than those
previous estimates. Non-profit company Resources for the Future
in 2009 showed that between 1999 to 2005 a 10-percent increase in
overweight and obese drivers reduced fuel economy of new vehicle
demand by 2.5 percent.

The report also comes to the more
controversial conclusion that obesity is driving SUV, van, and pickup
truck purchases. It attributes much of the rise in this sector
from 16 percent of total sales in the 1970s to over 40 percent today
as being the result of passengers seeking cars to deal with their
growing size.

Another study, which we previously covered,
comes to the conclusion that obese drivers are more
likely to be injured during car wrecks despite their extra
mass apparently overcoming whatever padding their flab
provided.

The Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that in
America obesity rose 1.1 percent from 2007 to 2009 -- meaning that
roughly 2.4 million people entered the category for the first time.
Plus the number of states with over 30 percent obesity rates jumped
from three to nine.

Consumer
Reports suggests
both that Americans need to lose weight and that plus-sized crash
test dummies need to be implemented to better protect those who
haven't lost weight yet.

There's not always an easy answer for
obese drivers. An Edmonton, Alberta Kia dealer last year was
forced to inform a woman who purchased a Kia Rio that she might
be too heavy for it. The sedan was pulling towards the
left. The dealership tried to correct it, to no avail, but
eventually gave up, realizing the laws of physics were stacked
against them; the driver had too much mass.

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